Corporal to Sergeant

The bridge over the Wilhelmina canal between Eindhoven and Best was initially not considered important by the British, but General Taylor thought it would be good to have in case the bridge at Son became unusable. He assigned its capture …

1944-09-18

7

The bridge over the Wilhelmina canal between Eindhoven and Best was initially not considered important by the British, but General Taylor thought it would be good to have in case the bridge at Son became unusable. He assigned its capture to “How” Company of the third battalion of the 502nd. On Dday, when the company commander realized that he was up against superior forces, he called for reinforcements. Both sides kept making repeated calls for reinforcements until the battle had escalated to the point that, by the following day (the 18th), two battalions of paratroopers were involved. As the 2nd Battalion joined the 3rd, they were in battalion formation in the middle of a field when they came under a terrific fire.

Best, Holland

Operation Market Garden was a failed World War II military operation fought in the Netherlands from 17 to 25 September 1944. It was the brainchild of Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery and strongly supported by Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt. The airborne part of the operation was undertaken by the First Allied Airborne Army with the land operation by XXX Corps of the British Second Army. The objective was to create a 64 mi (103 km) salient into German territory with a bridgehead over the River Rhine, creating an Allied invasion route into northern Germany. This was to be achieved by seizing a series of nine bridges by Airborne forces with land forces swiftly following over the bridges. The operation succeeded in liberating the Dutch cities of Eindhoven and Nijmegen along with many towns, creating a 60 mi (97 km) salient into German-held territory limiting V-2 rocket launching sites. It failed, however, to secure a bridgehead over the Rhine, with the advance being halted at the river.

Wikipedia: Operation Market Garden

German

American